Are we in a bubble?

[kab60]

Supermicro wants to drink from the hose (although peanuts). If Intel is smart, they too will raise a ton of cash. 

 

It's really quite hilarious to see them try and front-run SpaceX and these AI Labs.

 

Meantime, it seems like it's mostly programmers that are getting a kick out of LLM's (and anyone researching a new topic - like investors!). I can't help wonder how much of the hype stems from the fact that there's this massive echo chamber, given VC's/Silicon Valley and tech co's are all about 'tech' and 'programming' and thus they're seeing some real gains in areas they know well. And as an investor/researcher, these things are great too! While meanwhile, the rest of the work mostly seems to function as it always did. I always prod service professionals I work with - product managers, lawyers, accountants, animation folks + photographers - and even went on a Claude Course with a bunch of them. And none of them really seem to be gaining much from this shit. They were all afraid for a while that their businesses would be affected in a bad way, but they've seen very little impact and hardly seem to use it. Some have toyed with some Claude Code to 'build stuff', but then given up when a button suddenly stops working. I think the world is completely LLM-pilled. Outside of programming, customer service was the one area which everyone considered 'dead' (as in call-centers...). But people don't wanna talk to a bot if they have issues, and even in customer service, everyone now seems to agree it'll be a hybrid between people+tools. Just like it has been for decades now...

 

Hell, I tried to build a logo for my own firm using Nano Banana, and it was useless, so I hired a graphic designer (like the old days). I really don't think most people wanna 'build' stuff and maintain it, unless it's core to what they do. They wanna buy stuff that works and is maintained and gets real shit done.

 

[Peregrine]

1 hour ago, kab60 said:

Supermicro wants to drink from the hose (although peanuts). If Intel is smart, they too will raise a ton of cash. 

 

It's really quite hilarious to see them try and front-run SpaceX and these AI Labs.

 

Meantime, it seems like it's mostly programmers that are getting a kick out of LLM's (and anyone researching a new topic - like investors!). I can't help wonder how much of the hype stems from the fact that there's this massive echo chamber, given VC's/Silicon Valley and tech co's are all about 'tech' and 'programming' and thus they're seeing some real gains in areas they know well. And as an investor/researcher, these things are great too! While meanwhile, the rest of the work mostly seems to function as it always did. I always prod service professionals I work with - product managers, lawyers, accountants, animation folks + photographers - and even went on a Claude Course with a bunch of them. And none of them really seem to be gaining much from this shit. They were all afraid for a while that their businesses would be affected in a bad way, but they've seen very little impact and hardly seem to use it. Some have toyed with some Claude Code to 'build stuff', but then given up when a button suddenly stops working. I think the world is completely LLM-pilled. Outside of programming, customer service was the one area which everyone considered 'dead' (as in call-centers...). But people don't wanna talk to a bot if they have issues, and even in customer service, everyone now seems to agree it'll be a hybrid between people+tools. Just like it has been for decades now...

 

Hell, I tried to build a logo for my own firm using Nano Banana, and it was useless, so I hired a graphic designer (like the old days). I really don't think most people wanna 'build' stuff and maintain it, unless it's core to what they do. They wanna buy stuff that works and is maintained and gets real shit done.

 

 

You'd be surprised how much of an echo chamber tech CEOs are in. Just take a look at what people on AWS or Amazon Reddit say about their managers - just blind top-down edict to deploy AI wherever possible even if it made no sense. The actual coders have been saying that force-feeding of AI into everything has been counterproductive but the message apparently doesn't get into the CEOs' heads until they see the bills and the mountain of slop created.

[frommi]

On 6/5/2026 at 7:06 PM, frommi said:

Elliott wave counting. Doesn't always work, but when it does you look like a wizard

Just to try it again. We are ready in the SPY to move down another 40 points.

[thowed]

OK!  Fascinating - feels like things are rocketing today!

 

I still have some QQQ Puts, so feel reasonably ready if it goes up or down, though probably need more Tech if it goes up! 

[Cor]

5 hours ago, frommi said:

Just to try it again. We are ready in the SPY to move down another 40 points.

Following

[SharperDingaan]

Very odd sitting in a trading CAD space tech etf, that will almost certainly have bought SPCX today, a day before US ETFs (both leveraged and unleveraged) containing SPCX are allowed to trade on Monday. Must be what it is like to be a white house staffer using inside information to place bets on polymarket .

 

Good luck.

 

SD

[frommi]

6 hours ago, Cor said:

Following

Looks like it was delayed to next week

[brobro777]

Whether bubble or not, these thousand intraday NQ point moves is pretty great

 

Boy I remember in 2004 when NQ was around 1300-1400. Now it's 30000! Not bad baby!

[tnathan]

On 6/9/2026 at 11:52 AM, Red Lion said:

 

This is a great point, and I've been thinking about this post and just haven't had time to respond. 

 

I think using retailers is a good example for the point you're making, but I think you'd probably need an individualized analysis across industries to really look at the potential impacts of AI adoption. 

 

Many small caps have good gross margins, but do not have the economies of scale to convert those into great net profit margins. I feel like a massive increase in productivity could certainly flow to the bottom line in these types of scenarios. 

 

Looking even smaller, non-publicly traded mom and pop type businesses are at the bottom of the food chain. They have the least access to good employees, and higher administrative costs to spread over a limited revenue base. These types of businesses have huge tailwinds from tools like AI (just like they did with the internet/cloud computing/ credit card software / the advent the smartphone / etc.) as it can help level the playing field.

 

As a general matter, employee productivity has been increasing for decades along with higher profit margins. This coincides with the adoption of technology which has assisted the labor force with improved productivity gains, and overall, this has indeed improved profit margins. Just from my own experience dabbling with AI applications, I believe we will probably see a significant increase in employee productivity in a surprising number of fields. 

 

I think it's a reasonable probability that service businesses sprout up to offer small/mid cap/private companies access to information, technology, legal, HR, market research, etc. services that have historically been available to Fortune 500 type companies. 

 

There will certainly be winners and losers, and retailer seems like the great example of an industry that will stop at nothing to compete its profits away. I think Buffett said something along the lines that the only way to make money in a commodity business is to have the structurally lowest cost of production, and that probably applies to retail as well. I would say for industrial or services type business that already have good unit economics, improved productivity is likely to flow at least in part to improving the bottom line. 

+1 agree here. I think the main mindset I've taken is many businesses that already have strong moats will improve that much more, but this isn't the time to think mediocre businesses will become much better through AI over the long term.